Sales Strategic Initiatives Lead - Manulife, Waterloo

AI Summary

The Sales Strategic Initiatives Lead at Manulife in Waterloo, Ontario, drives high-priority sales enablement and effectiveness programs. This role translates strategy into actionable plans, partnering across departments to ensure strong governance and regulatory alignment. Key duties include leading end-to-end planning and execution of complex initiatives, including risk management. Candidates require at least two years of program management experience and strong financial services knowledge.

About the Opportunity at Manulife

This high-visibility role at Manulife Bank acts as an internal consultant, driving significant Sales Enablement and Effectiveness programs. The successful candidate will lead the translation of strategic objectives into actionable plans that deliver measurable business impact. This involves extensive partnership across Sales, Marketing, Product, Risk, Operations, and Technology, ensuring that all initiatives are executed with robust governance and regulatory alignment. Operating at the intersection of strategy, operations, and change management, this position is crucial for accelerating adoption, productivity, and overall performance. It offers a unique opportunity to influence enterprise priorities, establish scalable frameworks, and significantly enhance the advisor experience and client-centric growth within Manulife. The role requires a proactive approach to identifying process improvements and leading continuous enhancement through workflow optimization and post-implementation reviews.

Key Responsibilities and Project Leadership

The Sales Strategic Initiatives Lead will be responsible for the end-to-end planning, execution, and governance of complex initiatives. This includes translating overarching strategy into structured work plans, defining milestones, and overseeing agile delivery methods. A critical aspect of this role is owning detailed project execution, including managing timelines, tracking dependencies, and robust risk and issue management. Effective stakeholder coordination is paramount, requiring the ability to drive cross-functional alignment across various departments, including Sales, Marketing, Product, Risk, Operations, and Technology. The incumbent will facilitate working sessions, ensure clear ownership of deliverables, and support timely decision-making. Furthermore, managing governance and reporting, including dashboards, risk logs, and benefit tracking, is essential to ensure transparency, accountability, and executive visibility. This role will also lead day-to-day execution cadences, tracking progress and proactively addressing risks, issues, and blockers, while partnering with Change and Field Enablement teams to support adoption and communication planning.

Required Skills and Experience

Candidates for this pivotal role must possess a minimum of two years of professional experience in program management, consulting, or business transformation. A proven track record of managing enterprise-scale, cross-functional initiatives is essential, demonstrating the ability to manage end-to-end project delivery, including meticulous planning, execution, dependency management, and risk mitigation. Strong knowledge of the financial services sector and its regulatory environments is a key requirement. Proficiency with various project management and reporting tools, including Salesforce, Smartsheet, Power Automate Flows, JIRA, and Power BI, is highly valued. The role demands strong analytical and problem-solving skills, coupled with excellent facilitation, presentation, and executive communication abilities. Advanced stakeholder management and the capacity to influence without direct authority are critical for success. Experience with agile or hybrid delivery frameworks, including managing project timelines and deliverables in dynamic environments, is also required. Identifying process improvements and leading optimization efforts will be a continuous expectation.